Greg McVerry (jgregorymcverry.com)We need to take back the web. It is time to seize control of your own data, take control of your data and help build a community that shares your values. Please join us and the The Siedenberg Computer Science and Information Systems School at Pace University https://www.pace.edu/seidenberg/ for two ...
Given the location and some of the potential topics, this portends some interesting things!
Tantek Çelik (tantek.com)Sharing brief @IndieWebSummit notes as they come to mind.
This was the first year people pre-wrote proposals before the #BarCamp organizing session. As facilitator I decided to have people who never proposed before go first.
Coincidentally, @Christi3k just announced the same thing @OSBridge unconference organizing session.
This may be worth codifing as a normal practice. Let first-timers propose sessions first before anyone who has done this before, especially at an @IndieWebCamp before.
The other thing I did was, after the the first-timers finished explaining and scheduling their BarCamp session proposals, I had people *other than* the remaining session proposers choose from the remaining session proposals posted on the side of the grid, and advocate for them. I think that worked quite well for selecting for the sessions that were more compelling for more people.
While there is some implication in the event pages, I don’t know if some people were expecting the sessions and planning to play out the way they did (or if they knew what to expect on that front at all, particularly in chatting with people in the early morning registration/breakfast part of the day).
It was certainly more productive for me to think about and post some of the things I wanted to accomplish pre-camp. (It also helped to have your reminder a month or more ago about what I might build before even going to the summit.)
Having additional time to know what the scheduling process looks like, if nothing else, gives people a bit more time to think about what they want to get out of the conference and propose some additional ideas without being under the short time crunch. This is particularly apropos when the morning presentations may have run long and the conference is already a few minutes off track and we’re eating into valuable session time otherwise. I would suspect that helping to get the session ideas flowing sooner than later may also help the idea and creative processes, and even more so for participants who may need a bit more time to organize their thoughts and communicate them as they’d like.
I definitely liked the process of having beginners go first and then letting people advocate for particular ideas thereafter. This worked particularly well for an established event and one with so many people. It might be helpful to pre-select one potentially popular proposal from an older hand to go first though, to provide an example of the process for those who are new to it, and in particular those who might be quiet, shy, or not be the type to raise their hands and advocate in front of such a large group. In fact, given this, another option is to allow people to propose sessions and then allow advocation across the board, but for beginners first followed by everyone thereafter. This may also encourage better thought out initial proposals as well.
Thanks again for all your hard work and preparation Tantek!
This caused me to take a look at where the conversations on webmentions went within the Hypothesis project. Unless they’re hiding offline or somewhere else, it would appear that they’ve stalled, though I have a feeling that it could be an interesting notification method for Hypothesis to indicate to a site that it’s been highlighted or annotated. Also given that the Webmention spec is a W3C recommendation as of January 2017 compared to its status in 2014 when the topic was last brought up on the GitHub repo.
As a result of the above, if they’re free, I’d love to extend an invitation to Dan Whaley (t), Jon Udell (t), Jeremy Dean (t), Nate Angell (t), or anyone else working on the Hypothes.is project to join us in Portland this June 26-27 for the annual IndieWebSummit / IndieWebCamp. I highly suspect there will be some heavy interest in the topics of open ways of annotating, highlighting, and notifying websites as well as UI/UX discussion around this area which we can all continue to expand and improve upon. And naturally there are sure to be a broad area of other topics at the summit that will be of interest in addition to these.
The eighth annual gathering for independent web creators of all kinds, from graphic artists, to designers, UX engineers, coders, hackers, to share ideas, actively work on creating for their own personal websites, and build upon each others creations.
If you’re game for an extended trip, I’ll note that it’s right after Open Source Bridge (
@OSBridge) June 20–23, 2017.
Oops, I’ve just noticed that OSBridge hadn’t updated their site from last year. This year’s conference is on June 29th, right after IWS!
Over the weekend we hosted the first IndieWebCamp in Austin. I’m really happy with the way the event came together. I learned a lot in helping plan it, made a few mistakes that we can improve next time, but overall came away as inspired as ever to keep improving Micro.blog so that it’s a standou...
Manton discusses hosting (and attending) his first ever IndieWebCamp.
I’m excited to hear there will be at least one more IndieWebCamp before the end of the year.
Manton, I too once hosted an IndieWebCamp without ever having attended one myself. My advice is don’t sweat it too much. If you’ve got a location, some reasonable wifi, and even a bit of food, you’ll be okay. The interesting people/community that gather around it and their enthusiasm will be what really make it an unforgettable experience.
Incidentally it was also simultaneously the first ever Bar Camp I had attended and one of the originators of the concept attended! I remember thinking “No pressure here.” It was a blast for me, and I’m sure will be great for you as well.
As an exercise, I’ve made an attempt to list all of the social media and user accounts I’ve had on the web since the early/mid-2000s. They’re listed below at the bottom of this post and broken up somewhat by usage area and subject for ease of use. I’ll maintain an official list of them here.
This partial list may give many others the opportunity to see how fragmented their own identities can be on the web. Who are you and to which communities because you live in multiple different places? I feel the list also shows the immense value inherent in the IndieWeb philosophy to own one’s own domain and data. The value of the IndieWeb is even more apparent when I think of all the defunct, abandoned, shut down, or bought out web services I’ve used which I’ve done my best to list at the bottom.
When I think of all the hours of content that I and others have created and shared on some of these defunct sites for which we’ll never recover the data, I almost want to sob. Instead, I’ve promised only to cry, “Never again!” People interested in more of the vast volumes of data lost are invited to look at this list of site-deaths, which is itself is far from comprehensive.
Over time, I’ll make an attempt, where possible, to own the data from each of the services listed below and port it here to my own domain. More importantly, I refuse to do any more digital sharecropping. I’m not creating new posts, status updates, photos, or other content that doesn’t live on my own site first. Sure I’ll take advantage of the network effects of popular services like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to engage my family, friends, and community who choose to live in those places, but it will only happen by syndicating data that I already own to those services after-the-fact.
Through the magic of new web standards like WebMention, essentially an internet wide @mention functionality similar to that on Twitter, Medium, and even Facebook, and a fantastic service called brid.gy, all the likes and comments from Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and others, I get direct notifications of the comments on my syndicated material which comes back directly to my own website as comments on the original posts. Those with websites that support WebMention natively can write their comments to my posts directly on their own site and rely on it to automatically notify me of their response.
Isn’t this beginning to sound to you like the way the internet should work?
When I think back on setting up these hundreds of digital services, I nearly wince at all the time and effort I’ve spent inputting my name, my photo, or even just including URL links to my Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Now I have one and only one URL that I can care about and pay attention to: my own!
I’ve written in bits about my involvement with the IndieWeb in the past, but I’ve actually had incoming calls over the past several weeks from people interested in setting up their own websites. Many have asked: what is it exactly? how can they do something similar? is it hard?
My answer is that it isn’t nearly as hard as you might have thought. If you can manage to sign up and maintain your Facebook account, you can put together all the moving parts to have your own IndieWeb enabled website.
“But, Chris, I’m still a little hesitant…”
Okay, how about I (and many others) offer to help you out? I’m going to be hosting IndieWebCamp Los Angeles over the weekend of November 5th and 6th in Santa Monica. I’m inviting you all to attend with the hope that by the time the weekend is over, you’ll have not only a good significant start, but you’ll have the tools, resources, and confidence to continue building in improvements over time.
<
div class=”p-location h-card”>Pivotal
1333 2nd Street,
Suite 200
Santa Monica, CA,
90401
United States
We’ve set up a variety of places for people to easily R.S.V.P. for the two-day event, choose the one that’s convenient for you:
* Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/indiewebcamp-la-2016-tickets-24335345674
* Lanyrd: http://lanyrd.com/2016/indiewebcamp-la
* Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1701240643421269
* Meetup: https://www.meetup.com/IndieWeb-Homebrew-Website-Club-Los-Angeles/events/233698594/
If you’ve already got an IndieWeb enabled website and are able to R.S.V.P. by using your own site, try one of the following two R.S.V.P. locations:
* Indie Event: http://veganstraightedge.com/events/2016/04/01/indiewebcamp-la-2016
* IndieWeb Wiki: https://indieweb.org/2016/LA/Guest_List
I hope to see you there!
Now for that unwieldly list of sites I’ve spent untold hours setting up and maintaining…
Editor’s note:
A regularly updated version of this list is maintained here.
Chris Aldrich | BoffoSocko
Chris Aldrich Social Stream
wo years ago today, I officially began to (try to) own all of my own web data and host it on my own server.
It began when I moved from WordPress.com to my own domain at BoffoSocko.com. At the time, I wasn’t aware of the IndieWeb movement, but shortly thereafter I ran across IndieWebCamp.org and began using their principles and philosophy, which seemed to me to be how the Web and the Internet should have worked from the start.
Though I still use corporate-owned social media sites (primarily for increased distribution), I no longer rely on them for being the sole source of my internet presence or identity.
Now, through the boffosocko.com domain and a variety of tools, I post all of my content here on my own site first and then syndicate it out to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and any other useful sites. [Sadly, because of API restrictions I do still natively post to Instagram, but using OwnYourGram, I’m able to programmatically post the same photo on my site simultaneously.] This means that if any of these silos were to disappear, I would still own all of my own content (including comments I make on other sites, which sometimes could be blogposts/articles in and of themselves, or worse, through administrative interfaces could actually not be approved/published, and therefore completely lost as if I hadn’t written them to begin with.)
Also slowly, but surely, I’ve been able to have all of the resulting interactions that take place on my content on many of these silos (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) appear back on my site in the comments section on the original post. This way, if you’re commenting and interacting on this post on Facebook (for example) and you comment there, the comment is ported over to the comment section on my own site where it exists for everyone to see and interact with.
If you’re interested in joining the movement you can see if there’s a meeting in your neighborhood (or even create your own.) For those living in the Los Angeles area, there’s a meeting this week on Wednesday, April 27th! Click here for more details. Later this year, there’s also a bigger Indie Web Camp here in Los Angeles too!
If you think the mission and philosophy of the Indie Web are interesting and would like some help setting something like this up for yourself, I’m happy to help! Just post a comment below or reply to this post (depending on what platform you’re reading this.)
I also want to say a BIG THANK YOU to all those in the indieweb community who’ve helped me come much farther and faster than I would have done by myself!
I’m copying some useful introductory material from IndieWebCamp.org below for those interested:
What is the IndieWeb?
The IndieWeb is a people-focused alternative to the ‘corporate web’.
Join the IndieWeb
- Interested? Get Started Now!
- View current discussions and recent changes to this site to see what we’ve been working on lately
- Check out projects we’re building and join the discussion
Beyond Blogging and Decentralization
The IndieWeb effort is different from previous efforts/communities:
- Principles over project-centrism. Others assume a monoculture of one project for all. We are developing a plurality of projects.
- Selfdogfood instead of email. Show before tell. Prioritize by scratching your own itches, creating, iterating on your own site.
- Design first, protocols & formats second. Focus on good UX & selfdogfood prototypes to create minimum necessary formats & protocols.
Perhaps most importantly, we are people-focused instead of project-focused, and have regular meetups where everyone is welcome:
Homebrew Website Club
Homebrew Website Club is a (bi)weekly meetup of creatives passionate about designing, improving, building, and actively using their own websites, sharing their successes and challenges with a like-minded and supportive community. We have adopted a similar structure as the classic Homebrew Computer Club meetings. [1]
We typically meet every other Wednesday* right after work, 18:30-19:30, across cities and online. Some locations also have a 17:30-18:30 Quiet Writing Hour beforehand. Edinburgh is meeting every week, and some cities meet on Tuesdays!
Join us in LA (Santa Monica) for two days of a BarCamp-style gathering of web creators building and sharing open web technologies to empower users to own their own identities & content, and advance the state of the #indieweb!
The IndieWeb movement is a global community that is building an open set of principles and methods that empower people to take back ownership of their identity and data instead of relying on 3rd party websites.
At IndieWebCamp you’ll learn about ways to empower yourself to own your data, create & publish content on your own site, and only optionally syndicate to third-party silos. Along the way you’ll get a solid grounding in the history and future of Microformats, domain ownership, IndieAuth, WebMention and more!
For remote participants, tune into the live chat (tons of realtime notes!) and the video livestream (URL TBD).
 |
Your content is yours When you post something on the web, it should belong to you, not a corporation. Too many companies have gone out of business and lost all of their users’ data. By joining the IndieWeb, your content stays yours and in your control. |
|---|---|
 |
You are better connected Your articles and status messages can go to all services, not just one, allowing you to engage with everyone. Even replies and likes on other services can come back to your site so they’re all in one place. |
 |
You are in control You can post anything you want, in any format you want, with no one monitoring you. In addition, you share simple readable links such as example.com/ideas. These links are permanent and will always work. |
Pivotal
1333 2nd Street, Suite 200
Santa Monica, CA, 90401
United States
Map
Friday (optional): 2016-11-04
Saturday: 2016-11-05
Sunday: 2016-11-06
Indie Event
Eventbrite
Lanyrd
Facebook
Guest List
For more details see: IndieWebCamp LA 2016
Day 0 is an optional prep night for people that want to button up their website a little bit to get ready for the IndieWebCamp proper.
18:30 Organizer setup
19:00 Doors open
19:15 Introductions
19:30 Build session
22:00 Day 0 closed
Day 1 is about discussing in a BarCamp-like environment. Bring a topic you’d like to discuss or join in on topics as they are added to the board. We make the schedule together!
08:00 Organizer setup
08:30 Doors open – badges
09:15 Introductions and demos
10:00 Session scheduling
10:30 Sessions
12:00 Group photo & Lunch
13:00 Sessions on the hour
16:00 Last session
17:00 Day 1 closing session, break, meetup later for dinner
Day 2 is about making things on and for your personal site! Work with others or on your own.
09:30 Doors open – badges
10:10 Day 2 kick-off, session scheduling
10:30 Build sessions
12:00 Catered lunch
14:30 Build sessions continue
15:00 Demos
16:30 Community clean-up
17:00 Camp closed!
Sponsorship opportunities are available for those interested.
